gods. i don't want to start this by saying, 'it is with great sadness' blah blah blah. But damn if it isn't true.
Chas passed on this morning. He was a truly good, sweet dude and to say he will be missed doesn't begin to cover it.

Rev. Stang has already said everything else i might say here, said more, and said it better, so go read his blog because - just do it.
Its linked from subgenius.com. i'm gonna - go do something else now.

Many fond memories of Chas, from his asking me to be a part of Brainrot Radio Theatre early on, to sharing an office with him for some three years, to seeing him get down with that Theramin. Many more of course. Give my regards to his family for me. I can't be at the memorial due to work in Illinois, sadly.

Chas Smith, who lectured on the "Roots of Rock and Soul" at Cleveland State University and fronted the ever-morphing space-age rock band, Einstein's Secret Orchestra, died Tuesday at Cleveland Clinic Hospital.

The 50-year-old Cleveland resi dent and his band - some times called Einstein's Se cret Outlaws but better known simply as ESO - performed at many Church of the SubGenius "devivals" in northern Ohio.

Smith, whose birth name was Charles Vincent Smith, also provided music - with or without ESO - for the well-known religious-cult parody group's X-Day gatherings at the Brushwood Folklore Center in the southwest corner of New York state for several years.

"His onstage attire was quite entertaining," said his niece Jennifer Jusko. "He always had some kind of crazy costume. Sometimes an alien, sometimes leopard print, glam-rock shiny, camouflage. Anything kind of spacey. It was as fun to watch as it was to listen to."

Smith sometimes spiced up his everyday outfits - black shirt, black jeans, black hat - by wearing high boots, leather pants or spurs in the classroom. He often opened his classes by sitting at the piano and singing a song for his students.

He taught them about modern rock stars drawing from blues, bluegrass, soul, funk, country and gospel music to create their own sounds. He also wrote textbooks covering the same themes: "From Woodstock to the Moon: The Cultural Evolution of Rock Music," "The Soul of Sunrise: Grassroots Music in America" and recently completed a third tome.

The East Cleveland native, whose own influences included Lou Reed, Frank Zappa, and New York Dolls, began playing keyboards for garage rock bands at age 14.

Not long after graduating from Wickliffe High School, the son of a surveyor and a parochial school teacher moved to Arizona.

At 19, he learned he had Hodgkin's disease and returned to Lake County. His cancer was in remission for decades, but Smith's family believes the disease and radiation treatment he received probably compromised his immune system and contributed to his dying from complications of pneumonia and a stroke.

In the late 1970s, Smith got into punk rock. He played first with The Clocks and later The Pagans.

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He formed ESO and hosted Thursday night's "Swamp Radio" show on WCSB FM/89.3, while working on his bachelor's and master's degrees in music and later teaching at CSU.

Smith, whose other band credits include Venus Envy and Cobra Verde, sang and played an assortment of musical instruments, including the theremin. The early electronic music device produces eerie sounds that can be heard in classic horror and science fiction films and in The Beach Boys' recording, "Good Vibrations."

The Rolling Stones, the aging rock band that draws huge multigenerational audiences to its fast-paced concerts, gained Smith's stamp of approval as "the greatest rock and roll band of all time."

He told his students that the band is "still putting on a hell of a show and having fun with it. They're saying to all of us, 'The road goes on forever and the party never ends.' "

Chas was hospitalized a month ago with double pneumonia, and had a severe stroke while in the hospital. He had also been fighting Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer which he had beaten in his youth but which killed his brother several years ago, and for which he had recently started getting radiation treatments. Chas was a really tough old soldier but nobody could fight this so many illnesses and traumas forever.

Chas had just turned 50.

As a music professor at Cleveland State University, Chas taught the most popular course at the whole school, a class in the history of rock and roll and its roots. Chas put much more into his class than just the history, however. He was beloved by students as much for his spontaneous rants on life and society in general, or on space and science, or whatever had grabbed his interest that week, as for his musical subject matter.

He also taught regular and very popular workshops in music and consciousness at Starwood, Winterstar, and Sirius Rising. He taught basic musical composition to little kids through a program with the Cleveland Opera. He authored three textbooks on the history of rock and roots music: "From Woodstock to the Moon: The Cultural Evolution of Rock Music," "The Soul of Sunrise: Grassroots Music in America," and another which was only recently finished.

The focal point of his life, however, was playing music. He was in The Clocks, a popular Cleveland punk band in the late '70s and early '80s. During the 1990s and early 2000s he fronted Einstein's Secret Orchestra or ESO (with Dave DeLuca, Bob Mozick and Michele George (to whom he was married for several years). Two excellent studio albums and many good live recordings exist. In recent years ESO became more of a blues, classic C&W and jam band with many different members. Chas also toured with Cobra Verde as keyboardist.

Cleveland radio listeners heard Chas's weekly show on WCSB, Swamp Radio, every Thursday night for over 20 years. This eclectic show included not only whatever music Chas was into at the time, but live performances, jams, and also improv comedy and plays -- first with Brain Rot Theater (radio comedy sketches by Dave DeLuca, Dan Didonato, and Chas) and later with DeLuca, myself and my wife "Princess Wei." Chas also took calls from listeners -- and he got some pretty wild listeners. The bits recorded on Swamp Radio were a mainstay of the syndicated SubGenius show "Hour of Slack" for almost a decade.

Almost all SubGenius events in the Cleveland and Northern Ohio area featured ESO (or sometimes just Chas, solo) as the musical headliner from 1992 to 2002.

Chas was an outdoorsman -- not a hunter, but a hiker and camper. His seasonal camp at Brushwood Folklore Center in western rural New York grew into a sort of giant art gallery and performance area where some of the coolest events at Brushwood took place -- and if you're familiar with Brushwood, that's saying quite a bit. Variously called Tranquility Base and Club Tiki Banzai, Chas's parties (including the annual Rumble in the Jungle) are legendary. When Chas wasn't playing, he was DJing.

The camp -- and his performance costumes or "rock star duds" -- were outlets for Chas's considerable graphic arts talents. He had some of the most psychedelic outfits I've ever seen in rock shows, decorated by hand in his inimitable style. His home and especially the recording studio in the basement benefited from his handiwork and seemingly boundless energy.

Chas will be remembered by thousands -- his almost countless former students, his many fellow musicians and performers, his camping buddies and the many communities to which he was such a big contributor -- Brushwood, A.C.E. in Cleveland, The Church of the SubGenius, WCSB, Cleveland State, and probably many more of which I have yet to learn.

Chas wasn't the only reason I left Dallas for Cleveland, but he was definitely one of the main ones. He is already greatly missed.

A deep and heartfelt thanks to Bob Mozick for being such a rock for Chas and his family and friends through this whole hard time.

Chas played in the Clocks, the Pagans, Venus Envy and many more bands. His love of sound eventually lead him to the Music Department at Cleveland State University. This interview is a little under two hours long, and he talks about his life and music.

For those of you that have not heard, a concert to benefit the family of Chas Smith has been scheduled at the Beachland Ballroom on Friday, November 23. Full information can be found at [www.chastribute.com]. Unfortunately, I'll be out of town for Thanksgiving and won't be able to attend but I hope some of you can. Contact information is available for the promoters at [www.chastribute.com] if you or anyone you know might be interested in performing or contributing to the evening.

-Keith Newman
Chas' former on-air appendix, removed in 1993

PS I don't know who put together the tribute site but they deserve some serious praise.

Amen to that, Keith. If you can give me just 24 hours, I will make certain I print my tribute to Chas -- the poem "Sage Of The Swamp" -- on both this site and at chastribute.com. I should have brought a copy with me prior to logging on today, but I was preoccupied.